Black History Month at DMU features a richly diverse calendar of events celebrating the heritage, history, arts, culture and accomplishments of African, Caribbean and South Asian diasporas in the UK. And this year Special Collections was delighted to be able to contribute to this programme with a panel discussion event, 'Encountering Archives as a Person of Colour' and an online exhibition showcasing the work and collection of environmental lawyer, climate activist and DMU alumnus, Oronto Douglas, 'Fighting for the Niger Delta: the extraordinary life of Oronto Douglas'.
Above: DMU's logo for BHM 2023.
While Black History Month is a wonderful and much-needed event, we believe in #BlackHistoryEveryday. As such, below you can watch a recording of the panel event with time stamps and summaries so if you don't have time to watch it all you can hone in on something that interests you. This is followed by some highlights from the Oronto Douglas exhibition. The full exhibition can be accessed here: https://library.dmu.ac.uk/specialcollections/exhibitions
PANEL EVENT: 'ENCOUNTERING ARCHIVES AS A PERSON OF COLOUR'
The panel discussion took place on 18th October and was held in the evening in Trinity Chapel on The Newarke. The purpose of the panel was to explore, with the audience, how the field of archives is predominantly white, both in terms of researchers using archives, depositors giving materials to archives, and people working in archives. The panel discussion brought together professionals and users of archives to discuss the experiences of people of colour, when encountering archives.
Our esteemed panel featured: Jenny Moran (panel chair) Records Manager at DMU and Diversity Lead on the Archives and Records Association Board, Dr. Lisa Palmer, Interim Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, Holly Cooper, a DPhil student in History at the University of Oxford and Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society (2022/23), Marina Afonso, Archivist, currently working on a cataloguing project in DMU Special Collections and Hafsa Hirsi, with research interests in African history, especially colonial and post-colonial histories. She recently completed the young archivists course & worked as a library trainee in DMU Library and Special Collections.
Chair, Jenny Moran Dr. Lisa Palmer Holly Cooper
Marina Afonso Hafsa Hersi
Below is an edited recording of the event. The discussion begins with the panellists introducing themselves before Jenny invites questions from the audience as a means of getting the conversation started. The subsequent discussions are wide-ranging and encompass a number of the issues and challenges facing black people working in and using archives. At 00.07.00: Jenny informs the audience the session is being recorded with the caveat that anyone who does not want their question or answer recorded can request it be omitted.
TIME STAMPS AND SUMMARIES
00:08.40: Discussion of the lack of diversity in general in archives. Is the profession female-dominated with a distinct lack of black men either visiting archives or pursuing careers in the sector?
- Negative representation of black people/experiences in the teaching of history in schools
- Grass roots collectors tend to be women (creation of photo albums, scrapbooks etc.)
-Mention of surveys carried out confirm a lack of representation of black men in the archives profession. While the sector has ostensibly encouraged diversity in general, this is not so far showing results in greater uptake of people from a variety of cultures/backgrounds.
00:20.40: Discussion of how the event could in part be a platform for exploring how greater diversity in the sector can be achieved. What can we do?
- Broadening approaches to recruitment and selection processes
- the under-funding of humanities and archives leading to a crisis in how roles in the sector are perceived in terms of limited options/careers. How many courses/roles require extensive experience and are expensive. The need to expand routes into a career in archives
- fixed-term contracts and the above restricting who can go into/fund a career in archives
- the importance and value of community projects and their archives and the gap between ensuring long-term preservation and access
00:30.00: Further discussion of history education in schools as a 'turn-off' for many black people - is there too much focus on slavery?
- encouraging engagement by creating connections between a/the historical narrative and community/individual experience and the archival record. More to black history archives than just slavery records.
- the importance of being able to understand Black Studies in the context of the modern world and the making of the western world. How slavery has undeniably and directly led to huge gaps in accessible records that document black history
- understanding negative assembly: how records and archives have been managed historically has contributed to a negative representation of black histories: pushing the narratives of elitist frameworks
- not enough 'mirroring' in archives and education. Most experienced through a mainstream lens that either promotes the same figures/narratives over again without considering diversity of experience
- that black history is in local as well as London records. However, information is scattered through collections and work is needed to bring/connect records together to create those everyday narratives as well as those about enslavement
- decolonisation and the narratives beyond war, violence and slavery to promote an understanding of a more complex cultural heritage. The positive experience to be had in understanding where you are from can help you know where you are going
00: 47:10: Revising and restructuring the prescribed historical narrative in terms of uncovering the history of black people in Europe before the slave trade
- resistance to shifting the narrative in terms of humanising the dehumanised. Creative responses to the limited references of black people in archives as a way of starting conversations and asking questions about black history
- black Shakespearean actors, changing demographic of cities evidenced in records/photographs not specifically created/taken for that purpose. Countering an assumption that black people are not in archives when they are. We just have to look.
00:56.18: Discussion of whether archives spaces are welcoming and empowering to black people. Is enough being done to encourage engagement?
- the importance of black specialist archives and their work explicitly representing the specificity of experience
- how all archives should be working hard to preserve and provide access to black collections
- under-funding of archives affecting long-term preservation
- the definition of 'safe' in terms of looking after black archives: are they catalogued and made accessible properly? are they stored in structurally sound buildngs? are they packaged properly? Are they at risk of disposal? How these questions all align with questions around the safety and risk surrounding black lives.
01:08:00: Discussion of how to encourage engagement with specific communities
- digitisation, oral histories and post-custodial relationships
- undergraduate modules on black history and collaboration with archives
- The Stephen Lawrence Centre and its work with Leicester's African Caribbean Centre archive
- taking archives outside traditional settings to harmonise collections with community practices
Unfortunately, our recording cut out before the final section of the discussion, in which Jenny asked the panellists to discuss their most treasured archival discovery. Their responses were:
Jenny - chose two examples. The first was learning of the London chartist leader and tailor, William Cuffay (1788-1870) during a history class. Despite his mixed-race heritage as evidence of black history in the archives, this was never mentioned. The second is royal trumpeter, John Blanke whose image features in the Westminster Tournament Roll, an illuminated 60 foot manuscript from 1511. Another example of the frequently overlooked evidence of black people living and working in Britain.
Above: William Cuffay. From Google images. Above: John Blanke in the Westminster Tournament Roll, 1511.
Marina is currently cataloguing the papers of artist Andrew Logan and chose this image of Eric Roberts winning the 1973 Alternative Miss World where he competed under the name Miss Holland Park Walk.
Above: Photograph from the Papers of Andrew Logan. Catalogue link:https://specialcollections.catalogue.dmu.ac.uk/records/A09
Lisa described her childhood archiving habit of capturing Black people on TV via VHS tapes. These tapes were then featured as part of Birmingham photographer Vanley Burke’s exhibition, 'At Home with Vanley Burke' (exhibition information and images of the VHS tapes can be found here: At Home with Vanley Burke - Exhibition - Ikon (ikon-gallery.org)
Above: Image from the website, 2023.
Holly chose issue 2 of The West Indian Courier, a Coventry West Indian Centre Newsletter, for Winter 94/95. This source was found at the Birmingham Central Archives. The newsletter was used as a grassroots platform for community belonging, organising, and information-sharing. This issue draws on the complexities and ordinariness of Blackness and Afro-Caribbean transnationality, with numbers and addresses of different Caribbean High Commissioners alongside a recipe for Jamaican Pineapple Pie, as well as reporting on the homeless/unemployment epidemic for young Afro-Caribbean people, which sits next to coverage from Coventry’s 1994 Domino season review.
Hafsa described reading the diaries of her grandfather, a doctor in Somalia, when researching her own family history.
With enormous thanks to our panellists. Their willingness to share their knowledge, insight and experiences made for an interesting and inspiring event.
ONLINE EXHIBITION: FIGHTING FOR THE NIGER DELTA: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF ORONTO DOUGLAS (1966-2015)
Content Warning: The following summary and the exhibition refers to imprisonment, torture, execution, systematic violence and murder, and ecological destruction.
As work begins cataloguing this pertinent collection, we are privileged to share DMU alumnus, Douglas' work and papers in our introductory exhibition (link above). Below are some highlights from that exhibition. Douglas witnessed first-hand the devastation caused by the activities of oil companies in the Niger Delta and worked tirelessly as an environmental lawyer, campaigning for human and environmental rights. The collection shines a light on the injustices the people of the Niger Delta have suffered, opposed and challenged in terms of colonisers, multinationals and corrupt governments who have contributed to the plundering and environmental decimation of the region.
Above: Oronto Douglas c 2012
While there is not time and space here, the exhibition does provide the reader with the information needed to understand some periods of Nigeria's history and place on the world stage in relation to Douglas' work. Douglas was born in Okoroba, Nigeria in 1966 and studied Law at the University of Science and Technology in Port Harcourt. He co-founded Africa’s foremost environmental movement, the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and has served on the board of several non-profit organisations within and outside Nigeria.
The collection predominantly contains Douglas' campaign and working papers between 1994-2004 relating to his work as an environmental and human rights lawyer and as junior council for Ken Saro-Wiwa, author, scholar and leader of Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Saro-Wiwa was executed by Nigeria's military rulers in 1995 while Douglas was studying for his Masters at DMU. Throughout this period Douglas continued to campaign for democracy in Nigeria and against the destructive and polluting activities of oil industries.
Above: Selection of campaign papers relating to events in Leicester, 1994-95 Above: Article from The Guardian featuring Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jan 1995.
Widely traveled, Douglas presented papers at over 200 international conferences and visited over 50 countries to speak and present on human rights and the environment. He authored several works including the ground breaking Where Vultures Feast: Shell and Human Rights in the Niger Delta (2001), which he co-authored with his friend Ike Okonta (a copy of which is in the collection).
The papers also contain many reports produced by organisations, such as Amnesty International, and press cuttings documenting the humanitarian and environmental disasters affecting the daily lives of the people of the Niger Delta, as well as his handwritten notebooks documenting his work with British environmental scientist, Nick Ashton-Jones.
Above: Cover page of a report produced by Amnesty International, 1994 Above: Cover page of New African Magazine, 2012 with 'The Curse of Oil' as the headline feature.
After completing his studies, Douglas returned to Nigeria despite the potential danger. He went on to found the Community Defence Law Foundation in Port Harcourt in 2002 and took a position with the Bayelsa state government in 2005. Always an outspoken advocate for the people of the Niger Delta, he presented their struggle to US President Bill Clinton and became special adviser to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
Above: Douglas in his study, c 2004.
Douglas died in April, 2015 after a 7-year illness with cancer at the age of 48. Undoubtedly, his commitment to justice and human and environmental rights will always be remembered, paving the way for future generations to continue the work needed to change the world's catastrophic and destructive relationship with oil. As Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International said:
'Men like Oronto Douglas do not die. They may no longer be visible, but their ideas, passion and inspiration live on.'
Link to the Exhibition: FIGHTING FOR THE NIGER DELTA: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF ORONTO DOUGLAS (1966-2015)
Link to the Catalogue (a work in progress the collection is currently box listed): D/083 Papers of Oronto Douglas, Environtmental and Human Rights Lawyer
DMU Special Collections is very proud to be the custodian of Douglas' papers and we welcome all the the archive to view the collection and and gain insight into his work through these primary sources.
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